Análise dos elementos do ecossistema empreendedor de Sergipe : possibilidades e perspectivas

Abstract

Aiming to create a favorable environment for entrepreneurship and to encourage innovation in a given territory, entrepreneurial ecosystems have emerged as enabling environments for the creation of new companies, especially startups, giving space for new businesses and integrating various players in cooperative and flexible relationships. These players can be universities, mentors, entrepreneurial support organizations, accelerators, incubators, technology parks, investors, among others. Entrepreneurial ecosystems are understood as the set of interconnected players that come together with the purpose of mediating and managing the performance within the local business environment. However, there is a set of necessary elements for the entrepreneurial ecosystems to succeed, which are grouped into three types: cultural elements, social elements and material elements. In the last two years, several efforts have been made by a set of players for the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the state of Sergipe, Brazil. However, in order to an understanding of the structure of the system, an analysis of the state's current entrepreneurship scenario is required. Accordingly, the present research aimed to analyze the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem of Sergipe, according to the presence or absence of the critical elements of success indicated in the literature, in order to identify opportunities and challenges under the perspective of the players mapped in the current entrepreneurial ecosystem of the state. As for the methodological procedures, the research is of a qualitative nature, from the exploratory and descriptive type. The strategy used is the method of single case study incorporated. For the data collection it was used as sources of evidence the participant observation of events related to the theme; the document analysis, allowing the identification of the players present in the ecosystem; and semistructured interviews. Thus, two different types of semi-structured interview scripts were applied, totaling 15 interviews (5 startups’ managers and 10 players), selected from the sampling technique snowball sampling. For the treatment and analysis of the data, the adopted technique was content analysis, with the aid of software NVivo 12 Pro®. From the analysis of the interviews, it was possible to notice that: i) the Success Stories and Cultural Attitudes elements (cultural elements) were negatively evaluated due to the lack of dissemination of the success stories of Sergipe and the little culture oriented towards entrepreneurship. ; ii) the highest rated element was Financial Capital, due to the access being considered a relatively easy for fundraising; iii) the Universities element was evaluated positively, while the Human Capital did not have a good evaluation, because the entrepreneurial actions of universities are still at the beginning, but aim that in the near future the Human Capital element (entrepreneurship-trained workforce) has also a positive rating; iv) the Leadership and Networks elements were differently evaluated among the player groups - startups and players - due to the deactivation of Caju Valley Network. In addition, the other elements - Regulatory Environment, Supporting Infrastructure and Facilitators, Markets were negatively evaluated. Therefore, it can be concluded that the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem of Sergipe is at an early stage (birth), for almost all elements have been negatively evaluated. However, it is noteworthy that the actions for the development of this ecosystem are recent and that the players have optimistic perspectives regarding the ecosystem.